The Story of an Easy Life

In thinking about presence,
about being present,
I can't help but think about story,
our stories.
And how sometimes those stories
make us into people who would rather not be present
in the day where we live.

There are times,
moments,
when I remember...
I think even of just recent times,
days, weeks, months...a year ago,
and I want to push it all down.
Forget.
Rush past the pain
and confusion
that memory remembers.

And honestly,
this just makes me angry.
My husband says it makes him bitter.
And soon the heart grows hard.
Dark.
Resentful.

And I miss so much
of living.
And the pressure often makes me break,
as bitter, brittle things do.
Sharp edges hitting others,
mostly the ones I love.

I think of Ty.
I'm certain he walked through much
that could make him hard.
Instead,
somehow,
he stayed tender.
He remained present.
And he cried often.
He said he was called Pastor Cry in the 'hood.

The last time I heard him preach,
he cried.
Many times.
And I know
it's because he was in the moment.
Fully present.
Fully alive.
And I can't believe that had he been holding on to what can make you hard
he would have been able to weep as he did.
Live like he did.

He used to say: God loves me more than anyone else. Not really, but sort of.

That love
transformed his life.
Transformed his story.

And so,
this life we've been living,
our story together,
my husband and I,
has not been easy.
In such a short time
there have been so many changes.
And the dark presses in.
One day I prayed: God...why can't anything be easy?
(I'm aware of how entitled I sound)
And He, in His great love responded: cry out to me...that is easy.

So, we cry.
And His love,
it steps in
and reminds us He is not silent.

Our edges are softened, then,
made translucent even,
so light seeps in.

And we weep.
Because He loves us.
In the midst of our story,
despite our story,
and even,
because of our story.

Here.
We are present.
In Love.
Because of Love.

And our tears are our gratitude.
A humble offering of thanksgiving.

And maybe,
living a life of presence, then,
is the easiest life of all.

An Easy Life

I've not posted anything for a couple weeks...

Mostly, I've not been emotionally capable of it.

Even writing that sentence makes me want to cry.

Old friends from my youth were tragically killed in a car accident.

These are the scenarios no one wants to think about...
they exist in some other alternate universe.

Ty and Terri were their names and they lived in Omaha.
But I knew them when I was 14 as youth leaders here in California.
And, just two weeks before their death,
I saw them in Omaha when we were visiting our family.

I've spent some time thinking about why this death has in so many ways immobilized me.

Is it the memory of innocent youth?
Or that time when I loved Jesus with a whole and infatuated heart?
Maybe it's just remembering how much they loved me...and all of us.
How they took time.
How when they were with you, they were all with you.

And, while I think the missing of these dear people is all of this,
I think mostly it's that last piece...their presence.
I learned once that if you don't have words or advice or anything like that to give someone,
just give them yourself, your presence.
BE with them.
And I think that for the last 30 years of my life,
even though so much distance in so many ways existed between us,
I still knew their presence in my life.

I think the same is true for the thousands of people who watched their funeral.
And the handful of us who were together a couple weeks ago here in California to remember them.
We feel their death so deeply because they were with us so completely.

It couldn't have been easy on them,
but they made it look that way.
It was their gift...this gift of presence.
The gift of being.

We live in a day when to live in a present way is challenging,
not because we carry any different pressures than any other time,
but because it is so easy  to escape.
I can slip away from my children with a simple swipe of my smartphone.
I can enter the lives of those I haven't seen in decades
Or shop
Or read
Or listen
and not BE.

Even now as I write my children have woken from their nap
and I find I must come to a place in this post where I stop
so I can be with them.
Not just because they have physical needs,
but because they need their mom to BE.

This is not easy...
and I find myself craving an easy life.
I don't want to do the hard work of being present,
I don't want to have to give up my life,
myself in order to be with them
or anyone.

And.
I want more for my children
my marriage
my friendships.

I'll be blogging about these things over the next few weeks...
please join me.